


tchotchkes

by weekend_conspiracy_theorist



Series: Star Trek Prompts [15]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 13:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13342533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekend_conspiracy_theorist/pseuds/weekend_conspiracy_theorist
Summary: Len gets a head start on the moving process.





	tchotchkes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jessicamiriamdrew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicamiriamdrew/gifts).



“Don’t just stand there; put your hands somewhere useful,” Leonard pants, catching Spock by the wrist with one sweaty hand. With a subtle sigh, Spock allows himself to be pulled across the threshold, and the door closes behind him with a soft hiss.

“I arrived at exactly seventeen hundred hours, as I told you I would,” he admonishes. He sets his hands beneath the box- labelled “Tchotchkes” in a messy scrawl- and Leonard huffs as he lowers the knee he’d been using to steady it.

He walks his grip carefully from the middle towards the other side, his jaw jutting out teasingly as he drawls, “So I got a little excited and started without you; blame me, Spock?”

Spock feels an unanticipated thrum of heat, remembering the last time those words had been uttered in this room, and Leonard’s eyes sparkle with mischief. “Doctor,” Spock protests, low and sharp, and he’s answered with a bark of laughter.

“Yeah, yeah, I should have let you help more with the moving,” Leonard admits, his smile softening into something lopsided and fond. “But are you complaining about the fact that you didn’t have to walk back and forth between our rooms half a dozen times?”

“If you had waited for my assistance, the number of necessary trips would have been significantly decreased,” Spock argues. “Additionally, the odds of your injuring yourself–”

“I know how to lift a damn box with my knees, man!”

They enter into the hallway at the same time as Leonard’s outburst, and the passing crew members glance at them with amusement. Spock sighs a second time, just as silently as the first, but Leonard knows him too well to miss it.

“I’ll let you do all the unpacking,” he offers magnanimously.

Spock does not scowl, as he is a Vulcan, but he cannot refrain from a subtle glower. “Leonard, you have an excessive number of small keepsakes, whose positioning you will insist upon adjusting in my wake should I be the one to unpack them.”

“Tchotchkes.”

“Pardon?”

“Tchotchkes, not keepsakes.”

“I do not understand the difference.”

“There isn’t one, particularly.”

“Then I shall continue to use–”

“But I like ‘tchotchkes’ more,” Leonard adds.

Spock considers him, then lifts the box completely from Leonard’s hands and sets it neatly on the floor, pressed snugly against the wall. He steps forward, cupping Leonard’s face between his hands and tilting his chin up; Leonard’s hands find his hips, and Spock informs him, “You are being purposefully argumentative.”

“I’m in a good mood.” Leonard’s fingers curl into the fabric of Spock’s uniform, a smile hovering in the crinkles of his striking eyes. “I’m moving in with my gorgeous partner, whom I very much enjoy riling up.”

“Ah.” Spock tilts his head to the side, feeling a tendril of love- and amusement- curl through his chest. “Mate.”

Leonard blinks. “Sorry?”

“Not ‘partner’; mate.”

“I d–is, is there a _difference_?”

“I prefer the term ‘mate’.”

“You–” Leonard fights back a grin as he prods him in the chest, leaning back even as Spock leans forward– “You are pulling my leg. You are a brat, nothing except for a grade A pain in my–”

Spock’s lips cut him off. He keeps their kiss chaste, though it is long, then withdraws once more and lifts the box of _tchotchkes_ up to one shoulder. “Come, Doctor. We are on a tight schedule if we wish to finish unpacking your belongings before we… _retire_ for the night.”

Leonard bounces on the balls of his feet, clasping his hands behind his back, and falls into step at Spock’s side. “Why, Mr. Spock, I do believe we’re in agreement for once.”


End file.
